Free Wine Blog VII: It’s In The Can

This is not to be confused with a Free Wine Blog/A Wine Blog That Is Free. The wine is free, but the blog is going to cost you. Don’t worry, I’ll send you an invoice. Yes, by reading this disclaimer, you have already agreed to pay me. This also shouldn’t be confused with Shitty Wine Blog, which is the far superior blog I am lampooning. If you want better writing about terrible wine, go to that blog and disregard this one. Brittany actually knows what she’s talking about when it comes to kitsch beveraging.

I still don’t know why people keep giving me this free booze. It seems that once a week, someone says, “Oh here, you drink, have this”. And the sad part is, they don’t even know that I’m writing a blog about it, they think that I legitimately enjoy these things. In a way, I suppose that I do. I’ve always wanted to suffer for the sake of art and this doesn’t cause [too much] self-mutilation, so it’s win-win-draw. The tiny little number that I imbibed on last night was chilling in the back of my fridge for almost a month. I’ve been reluctant to drink it because I found it hard to believe that it was a real thing. I present to you:

Is it a Red Bull? Is it a plane? Is it some sort of Pellegrino product? Nope, it’s Pampelonne Red Sangria Gently Sparkling Premium Wine Product! With my basic knowledge of French, I can roughly translate that name to “Wine In A Can, But It’s Not Real Wine, It’s Wine Product…In A Can”. Wow. Wine [product] in a can. What a world we live in! As you might’ve heard in Zook’s guest blog, Wine Product is basically wine mixed with a bunch of chemicals and watered down to be sold as a beer-like beverage, thus circumventing retail restrictions that vary from state to state. While his was filled with tap water and sugar, this cold can claims to only contain “6 Natural Ingredients”. Those ingredients are:

Carbonated Water – Yeah, I guess you can call that natural

Wine – As natural as it gets

Sugar – I guess that comes from the Earth

Natural Flavors – Uhh…

Citric Acid – I had to Google it, but yes, it is technically natural

Fruit and Vegetable Juice For Color – Do you mind telling me which juices? And are those juices natural? In that vein, I can make an all-natural beverage that contains Hi-C, because Hi-C is naturally occurring in supermarkets on Earth. This Coke is all natural, because it was made by stuff that was found in the general habitat. You know what else is natural? Butts. EVERYTHING IS NATURAL!

Naturally, I was excited to crack this baby open, just to see how horrible Wine [Product] In A Can could possibly be.

Mouth-Feels

– It opened with the same audible cue as a Red Bull. Just a slight, crisp sound of carbonation, followed by the weak tab depressing. By first scent, I was overwhelmed by nostalgia. 2009. The height of the Four-Loko Era. What a good time it was for all of us. We laughed. We danced. We chain smoked cigarettes. We wanted to die. Mmm. I miss me some Four-Loko.

– On my first sip, I tasted notes of…nothing. Absolutely nothing. It tasted like I was drinking Gerolsteiner out of a filthy wine glass. This must be a gulping wine [product]. I gulped it to realize that I was actually being refreshed. This stuff has the right amount of water to keep you hydrated while you drink. I’ve never had my thirst quenched by a wine [product] before! This must be what winning the Super Bowl [or getting laid] feels like! I’m no longer thirsty! I could drink this all day! Nay, I want to drink this all day!

– I made the mistake of savoring it. As soon as the temperature rose, my enjoyment plummeted. It started to taste like flat diet soda, with only citric acid lingering as the aftertaste. Like a sangria-flavored Fresca. And the last oblivion-seeking gulp? Straight-up Boonesfarm. Everything is suck. How could something that started out so right end so wrong? Because. It’s wine [product] in a can. There’s a reason why these things hardly exist.

Earth Feels

The real essence of this beverage comes from an indiscernible street corner in Kyoto. Tom has been in Japan for almost a week now, but the culture shock has left him sequestered in his hotel room. After being urged endlessly by Aunt Marcy, he ventured out and remained cautious of everything, while only staring directly ahead. After running into a laughable amount of people, Tom decided to stop and take a look around. So many vending machines. But what are they for? Tom doesn’t recognize any of these products. It is truly a confusing world and Tom is just a cog in the machine that’s aptly titled The Confusotron 3000 ver. 2.0133 For Commercial Or Large Household Use.

Experience Feels

There was no real feels on this end. I watched some tragically boring baseball and went to bed earlier than I’m comfortable admitting. This is the only note I scribbled down:

– I wish Vin Scully would tell some random facts about my life. It’d be something like:

[Troy steps up to the plate] Troy Turnwald hails from a small town, Chesaning, Michigan. The town was once known [Troy blindly swings and misses. Strike one.] for a regional meat company called Farmer Peet’s. The plant had employed a majority of the residents for over a hundred years, when a high profile bidder took the company over. Foul tip down the left field line, no balls, two strikes. And who was that dark horse? None other than former Tiger’s ace, Denny McLain. And he ran that little plant into the ground, shuttering it’s doors for good in 1995. Many people in town were left jobless, but not Troy’s dad. He was in the bread industry. And he takes a big whiff and that’s the 11th strikeout for Mike Bolsinger. [Troy shakes his head and walks back to the dugout].

For some reason, in my own fantasy, I don’t play for the Dodgers. Go figure.

So if you ever feel the need to be bored with refreshment to the point that your fantasies have an unnecessarily realistic approach, then crack open a can of Pampelonne Red Sangria Gently Sparkling Premium Wine Product™!